Time Capsule
by pirate reader
Summary: Vanya never forgets. Five is trapped in the future and receives her long-buried messages. Can love survive the apocalypse? And what about the age difference? This is a sweet story with a twist of fucking weirdness. Vanya & Number Five romance. Lots of smut and angst. It starts a little slow but I'll get us there ;) Follows the Netflix show, I'm hoping to read the comics soon.
1. Chapter 1

It all started with peanut butter and marshmallow sandwiches.

Vanya had heard Number Five leave his bed. She could pick out the unique squeak and creak of every door and stair tread of the Umbrella Academy. She wasn't sure how she did it, but she could distinguish between Allison's high arches, Luther's even tread, Klaus' clumsy patter, Ben's thoughtful gait, and Diego's near silent whisper of feet against ground, her ears capturing the tiniest of noises from the furthest of corners.

And then there was Number Five. His footfalls the most familiar but the most difficult to describe. Like her, he was often awake at odd hours. Unlike her, he helped himself to the house, feeling an ownership, a belonging, that she had never had the confidence to emulate.

Vanya plucked her fingers over the duvet, unconsciously contorting her hands around an invisible violin. He was making his way to the kitchen. She moved her hands to maneuver the imaginary bow. He was opening the silverware drawer, the faintest clatter reverberating through the beams of the floor. Vanya's fingers stumbled, she knew it was all in her mind but still the imagined screech tore through her mind.

Her hand wafted to the bottle of pills on her nightstand. This was the point where she usually took another dose of medication and succumbed to its numbness.

But then she heard something.

Sounds she couldn't quite make sense of. A rustle. A pouring of something…sticky? A clatter. A muted curse.

She placed her feet cautiously on the ground. Hesitating. Wondering.

Perhaps she just had to know. Her hand slid off the bottle and she tiptoed from the room.

She entered as Number Five was placing marshmallows on thick smears of peanut butter.

He greeted her in his usual way - a preoccupied, but not unkind wave.

Vanya smiled at the peculiarity of peanut butter and marshmallows. Wishing she could be more like this brilliantly contrary, out of the ordinary snack.

He sat and ripped off a quarter sandwich for her. Generous. Inclusive. The simple gesture hit her like an unexpected punch, almost painful in its sweetness and unfamiliarity. When their fingers touched she resisted the urge to grab his hand, to solidify some sort of wordless yearning that seemed always to simmer right beneath her surface.

She imagined the sound as their fingertips touched, the barest of friction moving the air, creating something from nothing.

He had resumed scratching at a notebook, absorbed heatedly with the work, comfortable with her presence.

She plucked a tiny white blob that was dangling from her sandwich. She popped it in her mouth the way she did her pills. Upside down Five's sketching looked like the x-y algebra quadrants she had been struggling to master under her father's disappointed gaze. These quadrants were disappearing into…an ocean perhaps?

He spun it around to show her. Again, unasked. Generous. Inclusive. The quick way he pushed the pages toward her brazen, as if there was nothing about himself he would ever be embarrassed of. Self-assured. Cocky.

"Don't tell anyone," he said around a mouthful of peanut butter.

It was a mix of swirling doodles, algorithms, and trajectories mapped out like catapults.

"Time travel." He clarified, getting up to extract the milk from the fridge. He slapped it on the table with a self-satisfied smirk and poured two glasses.

He clinked his glass to hers. Raising it high.

"To the future!" And he drank it all in one swallow.

Vanya took a sip. Tilting her head forward so her hair hid some of her smile, as if excitement was something she wasn't allowed to feel.

"Well, aren't you going to say something?" He leaned back and kicked his feet on to the tabletop. Lounging as if the future had already been won.

"Wow," she said.

He laughed at her subdued tone. And then she laughed, unexpectedly snorting into her milk, causing them to laugh in unison. Both leaning forward, as if the kitchen table was the possible, theoretical future and they could simply build a bridge of belief across the divide. Absurd. But delightfully so. And strangely…it was believable. She did believe it.

Maybe it was because he was an outsider too. Nameless. And as friendless amongst their siblings as she. His sarcasm making it clear that he was not only the smartest but knew he was the smartest. He pushed Dad's patience for sport and pushed his powers in training until he seemed to have no limits. Nothing could hold him back. Walls, barriers, challenges. Nothing was impossible. Vanya wondered with another painful stab of emotion what it must be like to feel limited only by your will, desire, and courage. Her fingers seemed to know she would fail before she even attempted difficult pieces of music.

She pulled her sandwich apart. The marshmallows a constellation, an unconnected web like the numbers swirling in Five's journal. She picked off each white speck and handed the peanut buttered bread back to Five.

"To the future," she said and she threw back her head, swallowing the marshmallows with one long drink of milk. And when she put down her glass she saw him looking at her like she had just done something surprising and charming and all together out of the ordinary.

And that's how it all started.

Peanut butter marshmallow sandwiches at midnight, and his whispered goodbye as they parted ways in the hallway:

"We should do this again sometime."

And they did.


	2. Chapter 2

Vanya wasn't sure how it had started.

The peanut butter marshmallow sandwiches were to blame, sure.

That was the mystery that had gotten her out of bed. That's what had started the midnight meetings. The discussions of time travel. The after-hours exploration of Dad's library, Dad's office, Dad's shoe collection in the entryway coat closet…really anything of Dad's.

But how had this started? And by this Vanya meant the touching.

Was it that moment their hands had touched, when the first of the peanut butter marshmallow sandwiches had passed from No5 to No7. From tattooed arm to naked wrist. From extraordinary boy to unremarkable girl?

The second night he had offered her a sandwich but she had asked just for marshmallows. She ate the mini marshmallows one at a time. He sat on her side of the table with their elbows touching…occasionally their knees.

The third night he had the marshmallows waiting in one of the tiny bowls Mom used to serve custard. It was that third night that he brushed a lock of her long hair off of his notebook. He did it slowly, skating his palm across her shoulder. Did she imagine him going out of his way to touch her? To linger?

The fourth night she saw relief flash across his face. Just for a moment. As if he wasn't sure she would appear again. As if she was something wonderful…something that couldn't be predicted. He crossed the kitchen in a flash and when he took her hand she felt the jolt of his heartbeat through his fingertips.

"Ok, you're here, let's go." He said it all in one breath and pulled her out of the kitchen. And she laughed as she followed him to their next adventure. That night they had taken sips from Dad's bourbon decanter and pretended to be drunk. They swayed back to bed and she muffled her giggles into his neck.

The fifth night she showed him the rooms that were veritably soundproof. Both the east wing's unused parlor and two vacant sitting areas, each one too far from the sleeping areas to be heard. She had grabbed his hand first, and he didn't let go until they reached her bedroom door.

"Goodnight," he whispered and she felt his hands dissolve into hers as he teleported away.

The sixth night Five teleported into Luther's room and "borrowed" his record collection. They ate the sandwiches in the parlor and danced to the music. No one the wiser to their noise. They took turns spinning each other around the dusty furniture. Making themselves dizzy enough to collapse in a heap, their bodies entwined.

And now, the seventh night, they had laughed themselves to gasping, having taken turns doing impressions of first Bogo and then Dad.

Five got carried away. Twitching his lip in and jolting his finger up and down, delivering one of Reginald's classic lectures. So terrifying in reality but so ludicrously funny in pantomime.

"God, Dad is such a spaz! I can see where you get it from."

Vanya had both her hands covering a wide, unrestrained grin. Five pulled her hands away and stared into her eyes with mock betrayal.

"Not I!"

"Yes, you." She pulled him down onto the couch. "My turn," she insisted, doing a twirl in front of the fireplace, "That last one of Bogo was mean, time for a taste of your own medicine."

She strode across the room with unneeded quickness, oozing self-importance and jabbing her arms in exaggerated gestures. "What about this aren't you getting?! Ok then, I'll say it in plain English, this is not rocket science, I am right, you are wrong."

"Ouch, spare a guy's ego will ya?"

Vanya collapsed into laughter. "Did you not say nearly those exact words to Luther during this morning's training?"

Five propped himself up on an elbow. "You were watching?"

Vanya was supposed to be working on her biology assignment. Dad didn't allow her at practice. What was the point? She had no power. Therefore she had no place amongst the Umbrella Academy's finest. She could almost feel the empty skin of her forearm burn with shame. She had watched the practice secretly, risking the embarrassment and punishment of being caught.

Five looked like he wanted to say something, but she didn't want to hear about her otherness, her ordinariness.

"Do me," she demanded. Shoving him off the cushions.

Five smirked…God she loved that smirk. Moving to the opposite armchair he sat carefully and moved to the edge of the seat uneasily, wearing a worried expression as if afraid what it would mean for him to take up too much space. Vanya clenched her hands, uncomfortable in front of the mirror image of her smallness, her unremarkableness.

But then he tilted his head, listening intently, his fingers tapping gently on the edge of his thigh, as if deciphering sounds only he could hear. He turned to her, slowly, deliberately. His head tilted toward her, gazing at her intently. Like she was not only remarkable but astonishing…beautiful…extraordinary.

Vanya's heart rocked in her chest, creating a momentum she couldn't oppose. She reached forward with a quick daring she didn't know she possessed. When their lips touched the warmth and rightness took her breath away.

She pulled away just as quickly. Her thoughts catching up with her actions. Her stomach clenching with fear. The surprised look on Five's face made her squirm with embarrassment.

"That was unexpected." He was grinning. His arm snaking behind her before she could stand up and flee. His fingers curling around the back of her neck and pulling her toward him.

And at that moment Vanya knew what had started it all.

She had started it.

She was the spark. And he was incendiary.

And what would this new flame bring?

She didn't know. But what she did know is that she would do anything to keep this from ending.

Anything.


	3. Chapter 3

Vanya had been waking up with swollen lips and bruises in strange places. Not that anyone noticed.

Not that she minded. Not in the least.

She woke with insuppressible smiles pulling at her reddened lips. Her hands touching the bruises at her wrists, her hips, her thigh. Reminders that she had been touched, held, exalted.

Night after night, his grip grew tighter. And she made a game of squirming away, just to experience the pleasure of being caught again, just so that he would have to apply more pressure, leave a mark, undeniable evidence that this had happened, that this was real.

She wasn't the only one who wore signs of their encounters. Vanya watched Five's cheeks hollow, the bones of his face growing sharper, his eyes deeper. When he looked at her she could sense an inexplicable smolder of intensity, held just under his skin.

He was building up to something. She knew it, could feel it in the way he grabbed her waist, in the insistent dip of his tongue.

When they were together it felt like he was rocketing toward some unknown, unreachable destination while she would do anything to slow time down. To slow him down.

They had stopped talking about time travel, but he hadn't stopped thinking about it. He had filled the notebook and gone back over it three times, each pass filling more of the margins with ink. The cream of the page nearly obscured in blackness. He had shown her where he hid it, under his bed a loose floorboard had been roughly broken and turned into a hidden cavity. When he was training with the others she lifted the splintered wood and ran her fingers over the catapults and oceans and intersecting lines that went on for pages without perceivable end or beginning.

This is what he held in his mind when they were together, a part of him always in that notebook, working on a level she could never reach.

It was like each time they connected he grew stronger, bolder, more reckless. And she had less chance of getting away, of forcing another chase, of prolonging his presence.

She wasn't surprised the first time he rashly announced his plan to time travel. She couldn't imagine the frenzy inside him not finding an outlet. But it didn't make it any easier to watch. It was over breakfast, Five addressed Dad and dared the others to contradict him. Spoons froze at varied elevations around the table. Dad was mid-swallow. He turned a bit purple during that triad. Five held his own but the submittal Dad demanded was brutal.

That night Five teleported into her room, landing roughly on her bed, his rage a violent simmer coiling every muscle. Vanya didn't speak of her relief as he pushed away her pillow, pinning her shoulder with one hand and capturing her opposite wrist with the other. She could tell Dad hadn't persuaded Five even a little, but his dire warnings had shaken Vanya. Dad had spoken not only of danger, but of certain, unavoidable loss.

Vanya shouldn't have been surprised at Five's second attempt to sway Dad, but she was. She had hoped the first blow up had bought her more time. Five didn't give Dad a chance to cut him off, commandeering the chalkboard and launching into his equations, letting that swirling ocean of numbers speak for him.

There was an eerie pause when Five finished. Dad snapped the chalk from Five's fingers, and in seven quick motions drew x's through a handful of the numbers.

"I did not believe you capable of such foolishness. Your spatial jumps still lack accuracy. If you applied yourself to practicing half as much as you applied yourself to this lunacy we might be getting somewhere. How can you hope to pull off - " Dad seemed at a loss for words as he peered closer at a convoluted S-curve Five had drawn inside a triangle, "Pull off…whatever this is, when you can't control teleportation. Have a seat Number Five. And I wish to hear no more of this."

Five's eyes roved the board, taking in every x, every reason why he shouldn't dream of pushing past the only imposed limit of his power. He kicked his desk chair over on his way out]. Dad resumed teaching without comment.

That night Vanya went to Five.

His eyes were open. His arms behind his head.

"He's wrong," Five spoke to the ceiling.

"I hope he is," Vanya hesitated at the headboard. "Five…"

"Don't say it," he warned, his tone sharp.

She climbed on top of him. Trapping his body with hers.

"What are you thinking?" she asked. He smirked, his eyes moved from the ceiling to her face.

"Something brilliant,"

—-

The third time Five brought up time travel. He kept his approach direct and simple. Vanya was horrified when he struck his knife into the table. Only someone with a death wish interrupted Dad's audiobook fetish.

"Number Five?" Dad's lips pursed unpleasantly.

"I have a question."

"Knowledge is an admirable goal, but you know the rules. No talking during mealtimes. You are interrupting Herr Carlson."

Dad's record continued its slow drone.

"I want to time travel."

"No."

"But I'm ready. I've been practicing my spatial jumps, just like you said. See?" Five teleported to Dad's side.

"A spatial jump is trivial when compared with the unknowns of time travel. One is like sliding along the ice, the other is akin to descending blindly into the depths of the freezing water and reappearing as an acorn."

"Well, I don't get it."

"Hence the reason you're not ready."

Vanya shook her head. She held his gaze, wanting so much to bridge the distance. Even at that moment, with so much unknown, she knew he was slipping away.

When he broke eye contact. Her clenched fists went slack as if he had just slipped through her fingers

"I'm not afraid." Five said, confident, self-assured, cocky. Everything she would never be.

"Fear isn't the issue."

Then why was Vanya so afraid? She could hear the thrum of fear in her veins, a whoosh of blood to her head, unstoppable, relentless.

"The effects it might have on your body, even on your mind, are far too unpredictable. Now, I forbid you to talk about this anymore."

And strangely, Five obeyed. He spoke not one more word as he strode from the room.

"Number Five! You haven't been excused! - Come back here!" Was that dread she heard in her father's voice?

Vanya pushed herself weakly away from the table. Her legs felt light, incapable of holding her up.

"Five…" She called weakly. Her siblings were frantically looking between each other. No one knowing how to react. Dad looked stunned and…resigned. Vanya felt sick. She ran from the table of wooden legs. If someone called her back she didn't hear. All she heard was a tornado of blood in her ears, her heart bumping too fast, her body reacting too slow.

She made it to the street. People flowed around her.

But he was gone.

—-

Vanya woke the next morning with swollen eyes.

Not that anyone noticed.


End file.
